A thrilling Canadian Grand Prix just went down with Mercedes’ perfect season on the line and their two pilots fighting to be the Silver Arrows’ top dog. Would 2014’s script continue play out exactly as it had for the first six races with a Mercedes on the top step? Or would another team and driver finally get to taste victory in Montreal? Join me below the fold to find out…
After the contentious qualifying session in Monaco two weeks ago where Lewis Hamilton openly speculated that his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg caused a deliberate yellow flag to thwart his final fast lap, Rosberg responded by grabbing a straightforward Pole position in Montreal at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, besting his teammate by less than a tenth of a second. Once again the two factory Silver Arrows were untouchable with Hamilton’s 2nd position over half a second quicker that the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel, who wrung the most out of his underpowered chassis to take 3rd on a course that demands speed in the long straights. After showing signs of coming out of his season-long funk in the last couple of races it seems the German 4-time World Champion is primed to at least hold off his junior teammate Daniel Ricciardo for Best of the Rest honors come Sunday. But barring mechanical issues, Team Mercedes look to continue running away with the Championship points with the only real drama seemingly to be which of their two excellent pilots will come out on top from week to week.
Full Qualifying results below courtesy of Autosport.com:
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m14.874s 2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m14.953s +0.079s 3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m15.548s +0.674s 4. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m15.550s +0.676s 5. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m15.578s +0.704s 6. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m15.589s +0.715s 7. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m15.814s +0.940s 8. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m16.162s +1.288s 9. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.182s +1.308s 10. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m16.214s +1.340s Q2 cut-off time: 1m16.255s Gap ** 11. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m16.300s +1.246s 12. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.310s +1.256s 13. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m16.472s +1.418s 14. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m16.687s +1.633s 15. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m16.713s +1.659s 16. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1m17.314s +2.260s Q1 cut-off time: 1m18.235s Gap * 17. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1m18.328s +2.578s 18. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.348s +2.598s 19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.359s +2.609s 20. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1m19.278s +3.528s 21. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m19.820s +4.070s 22. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari no time
Race day is tomorrow at 2pm Eastern on NBC here in the US.
I have been playing this song lately as if it were brand new instead of nearly 40 years old. Between the hooks, the polished perfection of the band and the melancholy wanderlust, it feels like the ideal warm weather driving song. Here’s a primo live performance from ’77 with Randy Meisner singing his classic composition shortly before he quit the band.
Meisner didn’t write many Eagles tunes but “Take It to the Limit” is a beauty. The Eagles get a tough rap in “serious” rock criticism as being somehow too polished and slick, too SoCal for their own good, as if massive popularity somehow made the band unworthy of respect. But maybe all those millions of record buyers knew better than the critics after all. I think with the perspective of time and not hearing their songs every 10 seconds on the radio one can now appreciate just what kind of chops they had. Their lyrics are sharp, the vocal harmonies are Byrds-level good and the hits still sound fresh after all these years due to the super-crisp production. The Eagles gave the people what they wanted and they did it damn well. The next time you’ve got a long road trip go ahead and cue up Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II. Despite the fact that it’s all the same band, the songs are so diverse I bet you’ll keep coming back for more on the way home.
If at this point in your life you have still not read The Sun Also Rises there’s no need to berate yourself. The great thing about great books you have not yet read is that you are in for a treat when you finally do get around to them. After all, if we had already consumed every iconic novel we might be awfully accomplished but it would also take away that magical frisson that comes from the first-time discovery of something really special.
Here’s Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson duetting on the latter’s all-time great hit, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdMmcciQs8I
Don’t it just capture that sweet melancholy that Sunday seems to embody, especially after a rowdy Saturday night? Just says it all really.
In memoriam of a family friend of tomvox’s we post this New York Times obit of self-taught graphic arts legend, one of the true “Mad Men” in 1960s and 70s advertising and a stalwart at the School of Visual Arts for over 50 years, Tony Palladino.
Tony Palladino, an innovative graphic designer and illustrator who created one of the most recognizable typographic titles in publishing and film history, the off-kilter, violently slashed block-letter rendering of “Psycho,” died on May 14 in Manhattan. He was 84.
Mr. Palladino’s conception for “Psycho” originally appeared on the book jacket for Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel of that title, published by Simon & Schuster. For his 1960 film adaptation, Alfred Hitchcock purchased the rights to the lettering for its promotion, which influenced the opening credit sequence created by Saul Bass.
Mr. Palladino said the design — stark white letters torn and seemingly pasted together against a black background to resemble a ransom note — was intended to illustrate typographically the homicidal madness of the novel’s protagonist, Norman Bates.
“How do you do a better image of ‘Psycho’ than the word itself?” he said.
Read the complete NY Times obituary for this highly accomplished man here.
